21 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
21 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
History
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The New World is called such by the demihuman inhabitants of the Western Kingdom, because it is a very significant change from the way things used to work 300 years ago.
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Five thousand years ago, at least – by most reckoning, since all historical records from the period were destroyed – humans, elves, gnomes, and many other demihuman races had dominated most of the world in their own separate kingdoms. The world was, by and large, peaceful, aside from the occasional skirmish between kingdoms. And then everything changed.
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For the thousand years (or more, nobody's sure) before the total rise of their kingdoms, the demihuman races had worked hard to extinguish the monstrous races from the face of the world. Up until now, everyone thought it was successful – there wasn't so much as an Orc sighting in over 100 years. The world was, as far as they could tell, 100% dominmated by demihumans. However, they had made a great miscalculation – they did not realise that the catacombs and tombs into which some elements had fled, did not simply become their eternal resting places. These dungeons had acceses in them to the Underdark, into which the monstrous races of the world fled to hide and bide their time.
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One day, the doors to the underdark were flung open. In a great tumult, the monstrous races that everyone thought had been extinguished, flared up on the world. At the head of an army of hundreds of thousands of monsters, undead, demons and devils, the leaders of the Great Alliance brought war, death, and suffering back to the world in larger scale than had ever been seen before. The good kingdoms of the world toppled in short order, the once-pristine cities razed, and their populations enslaved. With the demonic, devilish, and otherworldly alliances that had been made, the demihumans stood no chance against the Great Alliance.
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The few demihuman priests of the Old Religion who were able to sneak in a sermon before caught (and killed) by their taskmasters, were quick to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of the very people who had driven the monstrous races from the earth. “We were vicious, and we were cruel,” they would say; “And so the Lord has delivered us into the hands of our enemies...”
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For thousands of years, demihuman races stayed enslaved to the monstrous races of the world. They were abused, tortured, defiled, and murdered as their taskmasters saw fit. The monstrous races exacted a horrible toll for their hundreds of years of persecution and exile. The cries of the people went out to the sky to save them from their torment, but their prayers were unanswered, until just 300 years ago.
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There was a slave uprising in the mines of an Orcish king, somewhere northeast of the current frontier. A man emerged from the lowest portions of the mines early one morning brandishing a crude stone, carved into the shape of a lightning bolt – and a fine two-handed bastard sword, whose origin nobody could decipher. There were no weapons allowed in the slave camps, and the orcs did not carry such weapons. Regardless, after a short oratory and a thundering of his voice from the mine, the people were roused to turn their picks and shovels upon the Orcish enslavers. Despite being starved, tired, and exhausted, they managed to seize control of the camp.
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News of this uprising spread fast, both among the slaves and the overlords. The people were claiming the man as a Saint, and the overlords were quick to squash this whenever it was heard. However, it was hard to deny he was a Saint – especially when he took over camp after camp, his numbers growing, and his power soon becoming undeniable. Not to mention the rumors that he could heal the sick, feed the hungry, and even raise the dead and dying.
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The slave uprising continued for ten years, with the enslavers unable to stop the rumbling in their lands. Soon the uprising was a formidable army, which had inspired similar uprisings across the lower monstrous territories. Specifically, nine of these uprisings occurred in total, forming together into a great slave army under the command of nine great generals, with the first of them at their head. The remnants of the Great Alliance was beginning to crumble, and there was nothing they could do about it. The messages returned to the Alliance were simple, one line of text, carved into granite tablets and delivered with the heads of the monstrous messengers - “Let my people go.”
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The Enslavers refused, and it culminated in a great battle, hundreds of miles northeast of where Hillsburrough is now located. The slave army – tired, sick and hungry when it left, now healthy, strong, and with full numbers and armaments – met the armies of the few remaining Great Allies. Demons, Devils, Dragons, Monsters, Giants, everything you can imagine was involved in the fight. The only aid to the slaves, of any kind, was the nine almost supernatural men (most people claimed them as Angels) who lead them to victory that day. The armies of the Great Allies took a crushing defeat there, and retreated back to the safety of their own lands.
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The cry of victory went up all over the enslaved lands, and the slaves – now free men – were lead to the Waterwall Mountains (now the Eastern Mountains), where they prayed for safe passage across. The Gods of the Demihumans are said to have delayed that winter, dried the mountain snows, and made verdant the mountain passes for their crossing. They crossed safely, totally unmolested, leaving the enslavers behind them. The mountains froze over again immediately after their passing, and the passes quickly became unnavigable.
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Though the Great Alliance was never actually destroyed, its power was undeniably broken. The slaves of the Great Kingdoms would no longer tolerate their masters, and they would forever be dealing with similar uprisings. Though the deepest Kingdoms have managed to keep their slaves in check, the outer Kingdoms have fallen to in-fighting, power plays, and ultimately, ruin.
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The Council of Nine, as the leaders of the rebellion came to be called, said that the fight was not over. The Great Alliance was allowed to take them into their evil because they had gone astray; but even though they must not fall into their old evil, the peoples of the world must not forget their brethren still in captivity. But the responsibility fell into the hands of each and every individual good creature in the world to liberate the others, and to follow the path of righteousness. After giving this speech, and being blessed at a religious ceremony, the Council of Nine left the kingdom, going to a secluded church in the Dragon's Spine mountains – which has still never been found, save by a few very high level clerics of Heironeous.
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So they say this is a New World. One where all men will be equal, where the balance will be kept at all costs; where men can live free without fear of persecution, so long as they are good men – whatever race they may be. Will it work? Will the Great Alliance re-form, and come back to re-take their captives?
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... Only the strength and steel of the adventurer has the answer to those questions.
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Western Kingdom
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Originally settled by humans and demihumans fleeing the Great Alliance. The eastern mountains keep them safe from the eastern frontier and its denizens. Known as the "False Kingdom of Slaves" by the monstrous races, the kingdom is still very young, as evidenced by its rather haphazard road system, and the fact that King Braddock is attempting to expand east while still fighting elusive rebels in his own Southern Forests. But regardless, this upstart kingdom (the first unified demihuman kingdom ever to exist in known history) is proving formidable, which means it is the declared enemy of 99% of the established world (which used to keep the demihumans quite unhappily enslaved).
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